Dangers of remote work and what you can do to minimize risk

Due to the Corona virus a lot of businesses have had to adjust their work flows to follow CDC guidelines. Social distancing means that you can’t have more than ten people gathered and makes working in an office quite difficult. Any of us knows if just one person is sick in an office it will spread like wild fire. So what are most businesses doing?

Working from home! This seems like a no brainer, just send everyone home and have them work from there. What’s the worst that could happen right? Cue the boss fight music. There is nothing inherently wrong with working from home, a lot of people can be really productive in their own space. But there may be some threat to security, let's look at why.

Remote users often use personal devices

Not every company or individual can afford to have a separate work and personal device. A lot of us use one device for everything we do. Which is generally fine, but with people working mainly from home there is greater risk for cyber security threats to arise.

There is a reason most businesses block Facebook use while on their network, it can be riddled with viruses. All it takes is one click and your device could be compromised, now this isn’t really an issue for people with antivirus. But not everyone chooses to have that on their personal device because depending on which one you choose they can get expensive.

Working from home vs the office

Most companies have security measures in place for internet browsing while at their offices. The company’s IT team has firewalls set up on devices, malware protection, and many other measures designed to keep everyones devices safe. So even if they accidentally stumbled across a bit of malware it probably wouldn’t do much because of all of the protocols in place.

But from home people don’t always have malware, antivirus, or firewall keeping their devices safe. Their devices can be compromised without them knowing because they clicked a link on Facebook, or someone in the household opened a weird email. You never know what could be lurking in a personal computer. This means that allowing employees to access sensitive information while working remotely can be potentially dangerous for your business.

What you can do

Invest in security software for your remote employees. It will help prevent stolen data that could end up costing you a lot more than a subscription to an antivirus software company.

These won’t guarantee that you won’t have issues with people working from home, but it will help you prevent cyber threats. If you have any concerns over remote work for your business you should contact your technical support team in order to come up with the best plan of action for your business. They will be able to reccomend the best software and policies for your individual company.